Evolution of the Genre
Much of this chapter is spent with Hales giving us a brief history of the evolution of the genre. It generally starts with hyper-text fiction (similar to what we read for today) created on programs such as Storyspace and Hypercard, and generally involves large blocks of interactive text. The two works we read for today (my body--a Wunderkammer and Inanimate Alice) are examples of this. As the Web developed, though, and more tools such as Flash and Javascript were developed, the concept of what digital literature could be also expanded, branching out into things like Interactive Fiction (games and game-like elements), multimedia (combining different media elements such as music and movement with text), and more experimental approaches that mix text and meaning with all sorts of visual and/or audible elements, such as what we saw yesterday with Alison Clifford's take on "The Sweet Old Etc."
The Experience of Elit
Hayles says that Elit is, “performed with a context of the powerhouses of contemporary culture, particularly computer games, films, animations, digital arts, graphic design, and electronic visual culture. In this sense electronic literature is a “hopeful monster”…taken from diverse traditions that may not always fit neatly together” (4). Part of the tradition that may not neatly fit together is the relationship of the “reader” to the art produced. Hayles remarks “Readers come to digital work with expectations formed by print, including extensive and deep tacit knowledge of letter forms, print conventions, and print literary modes” (4). The reader is far from passive in Elit. Genres of Elit are being defined, in part, “…from the different ways in which the user experiences them” (5). For instance, Interactive Fiction (IF) has game elements in which the reader interacts with a simulated world. Generative texts combine foreign language, and even “machine” language with English to give the reader a new experience by creating, “…code that cannot actually be executed but that uses programming punctuation and expressions to evoke connotations appropriate to the linguistic signifiers” (21). It doesn’t seem clear if the participant is a reader, a coconspirator, user, or an experiment. Is Elit, then, only playing with the reader’s experience, since, in many works, the reader must use traditional methods of extrapolation to search for meaning, or is experimentation the point of Elit?
Hayles consolidates this issues when she says, "Whereas the traditional humanities specialize in articulating and preserving a deep knowledge of the past and engage in a broad spectrum of cultural analyses, the "cool" bring to the table expert knowledge about networked and programmable media and intuitive understandings of contemporary digital practices. Electronic literature, requiring diverse orientations and rewarding both contemporary and traditional perspectives, is one of the sites that can catalyze these kinds of coalitions. Realizing this broader possibility requires that we understand electronic literature not only as an artistic practice (though it is that, of course), but also as a site for negotiations between diverse constituencies and different kinds of expertise" (37). What she's trying to suggest here is that we're trying to bring together traditional approaches to literature with an understanding of the possibilities of modern technology and trying to figure out both what can be done and what its worth is.
The Digital Literature Canon
In terms of the essential pragmatic concept of what Digital Literature is and how Hayles suggests we should approach it, we should know that Digital Literature is computer born and meant to be experienced on a computer. Readers bring their experiences from print traditions into their interpretation of Digital Literature (4). However, we must learn to “think digitally,” or to “attend to the specificity of networked and programmable media” (30). In Digital Literature, it is important for the reader to actively interact with the text. There is a necessity of diverse expertise to interpret text in diverse ways and so the “aesthetic strategies and possibilities of electronic literature may be fully understood” (22).
On page 40, Hayles suggests the development of a Digital Literature canon will be “compiled by an editorial collective that will take responsibility for soliciting important works and making them available in accessible cross-platform formats.” What is interesting is that this “particular” construction of the canon might harken back to the construction of the original, restrictive, and oppressive print canon. It is possible that impoverished communities without access to computers or information literacy may be marginalized—as they are in other fine arts—if digital literature’s coded modalities are foreign and untenable to them.
The Rapidity the Medium Becomes Obsolete
In the conclusion to the chapter, Hales brings up an interesting conundrum: what to do about the rapid obsolescence of digital media. She says: "Over the centuries, print literature has developed mechanisms for its preservation and archiving, including libraries and librarians, conservators, and preservationists. Unfortunately, no such techniques exist for electronic literature. The situation is exacerbated by the fluid nature of digital media; whereas books printed on good quality paper can endure for centuries, electronic literature routinely becomes unplayable (and hence unreadable) after a decade or even less. The problem exists for both software and hardware. Commercial programs can become obsolete or migrate to new versions incompatible with older ones, and new operating systems (or altogether new machines) can appear on which older works will not play. With a foreshortened canon limited to a few years and without the opportunity to build the kinds of traditions associated with print literature, electronic literature risks being doomed to the realm of ephemera, severely hampered in its development and the influence it can wield" (39)."
The rapidity with which technology moves forward means that readable technology has a short shelf-life. 5.25" floppies gave way to 3.5" ones, which gave way to CD/DVD-ROMs, which themselves are all but obsolete. Our book comes with a CD version of the first volume of the Electronic Literature Collection. Most computers sold these days lack the equipment necessary to read it, and this book was released just six years ago. And even if your computer does have an optical drive, there's no guarantee that the modern OS could run it. So Digital Literature is faced with the problem of how to remain relevant in an era where it's very medium develops faster than the genre.
Discussion Questions:
When examining Digital Literature, we have a tendency to apply traditional values of literature to our analysis. Can this approach bear fruit, or should we be working on developing a new critical framework that takes into account the differences between traditional literature and digital literature?
Is Digital Literature and its technology oppressive to non-affluent cultures? How can professors incorporate the teaching of this in an inclusionary way?
The general process right now seems to be archiving important programs and documents to the web, which is working in the short term. But what happens, for example with "The Sweet Old Etc," when Flash 20 no longer supports Flash 8, and therefore won't play "The Sweet Old Etc."? Should we be considering how to preserve these works when the technology finally passes them by, or is it a more disposable genre who's evolution will outweigh the need for preservation?
Jeff Markovitz
Mark Thomas
Evolution of the Genre
Much of this chapter is spent with Hales giving us a brief history of the evolution of the genre. It generally starts with hyper-text fiction (similar to what we read for today) created on programs such as Storyspace and Hypercard, and generally involves large blocks of interactive text. The two works we read for today (my body--a Wunderkammer and Inanimate Alice) are examples of this. As the Web developed, though, and more tools such as Flash and Javascript were developed, the concept of what digital literature could be also expanded, branching out into things like Interactive Fiction (games and game-like elements), multimedia (combining different media elements such as music and movement with text), and more experimental approaches that mix text and meaning with all sorts of visual and/or audible elements, such as what we saw yesterday with Alison Clifford's take on "The Sweet Old Etc."
The Experience of Elit
Hayles says that Elit is, “performed with a context of the powerhouses of contemporary culture, particularly computer games, films, animations, digital arts, graphic design, and electronic visual culture. In this sense electronic literature is a “hopeful monster”…taken from diverse traditions that may not always fit neatly together” (4). Part of the tradition that may not neatly fit together is the relationship of the “reader” to the art produced. Hayles remarks “Readers come to digital work with expectations formed by print, including extensive and deep tacit knowledge of letter forms, print conventions, and print literary modes” (4). The reader is far from passive in Elit. Genres of Elit are being defined, in part, “…from the different ways in which the user experiences them” (5). For instance, Interactive Fiction (IF) has game elements in which the reader interacts with a simulated world. Generative texts combine foreign language, and even “machine” language with English to give the reader a new experience by creating, “…code that cannot actually be executed but that uses programming punctuation and expressions to evoke connotations appropriate to the linguistic signifiers” (21). It doesn’t seem clear if the participant is a reader, a coconspirator, user, or an experiment. Is Elit, then, only playing with the reader’s experience, since, in many works, the reader must use traditional methods of extrapolation to search for meaning, or is experimentation the point of Elit?
Hayles consolidates this issues when she says, "Whereas the traditional humanities specialize in articulating and preserving a deep knowledge of the past and engage in a broad spectrum of cultural analyses, the "cool" bring to the table expert knowledge about networked and programmable media and intuitive understandings of contemporary digital practices. Electronic literature, requiring diverse orientations and rewarding both contemporary and traditional perspectives, is one of the sites that can catalyze these kinds of coalitions. Realizing this broader possibility requires that we understand electronic literature not only as an artistic practice (though it is that, of course), but also as a site for negotiations between diverse constituencies and different kinds of expertise" (37). What she's trying to suggest here is that we're trying to bring together traditional approaches to literature with an understanding of the possibilities of modern technology and trying to figure out both what can be done and what its worth is.
The Digital Literature Canon
In terms of the essential pragmatic concept of what Digital Literature is and how Hayles suggests we should approach it, we should know that Digital Literature is computer born and meant to be experienced on a computer. Readers bring their experiences from print traditions into their interpretation of Digital Literature (4). However, we must learn to “think digitally,” or to “attend to the specificity of networked and programmable media” (30). In Digital Literature, it is important for the reader to actively interact with the text. There is a necessity of diverse expertise to interpret text in diverse ways and so the “aesthetic strategies and possibilities of electronic literature may be fully understood” (22).
On page 40, Hayles suggests the development of a Digital Literature canon will be “compiled by an editorial collective that will take responsibility for soliciting important works and making them available in accessible cross-platform formats.” What is interesting is that this “particular” construction of the canon might harken back to the construction of the original, restrictive, and oppressive print canon. It is possible that impoverished communities without access to computers or information literacy may be marginalized—as they are in other fine arts—if digital literature’s coded modalities are foreign and untenable to them.
The Rapidity the Medium Becomes Obsolete
In the conclusion to the chapter, Hales brings up an interesting conundrum: what to do about the rapid obsolescence of digital media. She says: "Over the centuries, print literature has developed mechanisms for its preservation and archiving, including libraries and librarians, conservators, and preservationists. Unfortunately, no such techniques exist for electronic literature. The situation is exacerbated by the fluid nature of digital media; whereas books printed on good quality paper can endure for centuries, electronic literature routinely becomes unplayable (and hence unreadable) after a decade or even less. The problem exists for both software and hardware. Commercial programs can become obsolete or migrate to new versions incompatible with older ones, and new operating systems (or altogether new machines) can appear on which older works will not play. With a foreshortened canon limited to a few years and without the opportunity to build the kinds of traditions associated with print literature, electronic literature risks being doomed to the realm of ephemera, severely hampered in its development and the influence it can wield" (39)."
The rapidity with which technology moves forward means that readable technology has a short shelf-life. 5.25" floppies gave way to 3.5" ones, which gave way to CD/DVD-ROMs, which themselves are all but obsolete. Our book comes with a CD version of the first volume of the Electronic Literature Collection. Most computers sold these days lack the equipment necessary to read it, and this book was released just six years ago. And even if your computer does have an optical drive, there's no guarantee that the modern OS could run it. So Digital Literature is faced with the problem of how to remain relevant in an era where it's very medium develops faster than the genre.
Discussion Questions: